“ Jessica, it's him. I know it.”
“ How? How do you know it?”
“ I don't know. You'll just have to take my word for it until you see it yourself. Something… just so right-on chilling about it.”
“ Where is it now?”
“ Under glass in my editor's office. We've made some blowup shots, and we've called in a graphologist to tell us what she can about the handwriting.”
“ What're you guys up to? Trying to do our job for us?”
“ Do you want to see it or not?”
“ We're on our way. Be right there.”
Jessica sent two agents to Nokesville, Virginia, to investigate. Then a wave of fear for Kim washed over her.
Jessica wished she could confer with the psychic FBI detective, realizing that Kim might well get some images from the document if she handled it. Psychometric reading was her specialty. However, in Kim's current condition, she was hardly going to be doing any readings, especially in a public place like a newspaper office.
The others on the team had begun to ask about Kim, and Jessica was running out of excuses. Kim had not been seen by any of them for over twenty-four hours, and there was some notion circulating that she was not well.
“ Is everything all right?” asked Keyes, who had just returned. She stared at Jessica, as if studying her breaking point.
“ It's Dr. Desinor… Kim. She's… she needs me. I'm going to see her before going to see O'Brien.”
“ Sounds to me like you may want someone along,” suggested Keyes. Jessica considered this. “All right, if it suits you.”
“ You told O'Brien that you'd be right over,” J. T. told Jessica.
“ I know what I told O'Brien, but I need to touch base with Kim, and maybe, just maybe,” she said, turning to Keyes, “you can be of help.” She called over to Richard, who was busy following up leads on a telephone, asking, “Will you call O'Brien and tell him we'll be delayed but that we're on our way?”
He replied, “Of course, and I'll meet you there when I get free.”
Outside they found the car that had been assigned to Jessica for her personal use for as long as she remained in D.C. on the case. They climbed in, and Jessica tore off and out of the underground lot, tires barking as if to speak her agitation.
“ What's up?” asked Keyes.
“ The Washington Post claims they have an authentic letter from DeCampe's abductor. However, he makes no ransom demands.”
“ Shit… if only it were about money,” said Shannon. “But I actually meant what's up with Dr. Desinor?”
Jessica had not confided all the details of Kim Desinor's illness to Santiva or anyone other than Richard Sharpe and J. T. Now a twinge of doubt invaded her mind as to Keyes's interest, her motives. Jessica knew that being tired clouded one's judgment, and earlier she had had no such thoughts about Keyes, but now she did. She was unsure why. Some nagging little voice told her to not completely trust Keyes to keep a confidence, so she avoided the question. “Sounds like from what O'Brien said that Purdy wants to know how we dare call him a sex pervert. Meanwhile, we're tracing the letter from its postmark.”
“ Are you intentionally avoiding the question about your friend because I'm a shrink? Trust me, I am only interested in helping, Jessica.”
Jessica asked Keyes point-blank, 'Tell me, Dr. Keyes, did Santiva put you on this case to watchdog me and to report back my team's every move?”
“ That's not entirely true, no, but he did ask me for a special report. You have good instincts, Dr. Coran.”
“ I thought so.”
“ But I'm not spying on you.”
“ Fair enough. Thanks for the honesty.”
“ So how can I help your friend Desinor?” Jessica took in a deep breath of air. “I'm not so sure you can. Not sure any of us can.”
The lights of Washington Memorial Hospital shone in the night sky ahead of them. A siren wail sounded. “Kim's something of an empath, and it takes a terrible toll on her when she does a psychometric reading.”
“ I can only imagine the depth of her feeling.”
“ This case in particular has had a dire effect on her sense of well-being.”
Keyes nodded repeatedly. “Some places in the human psyche no one should go, not even by proxy.”
“ She once told me about the suffering she'd had to endure in Houston, Texas, when she worked the Snatcher case there; the victim was a young boy, who somehow sent out messages-psychic images-of what he was enduring. She received every detail, and it still haunts her to this day. After that, she worked a case with me in Philadelphia, and it took an additional toll on her.”
Keyes sighed heavily and fidgeted in the passenger seat. “And now this.”
“ Now this. I think she may very well be getting images of what's happening to Maureen DeCampe-delayed images.”
“ Or subconsciously blocked images from her earlier reading of the crime scene,” suggested Keyes. “Must be truly difficult for her, indeed.”
“ Difficult isn't the word for it; it's abhorrent to the tenth power. A lesser person, I suspect, it could kill over time.”
“ I suspect you're right.”
Outside the cocoon of the car, the lights of Washington, D.C., gave way to the gloomy darkness of a spiritless gray sky, the blackness seeming to press down around the car they shared. Jessica parked and they hurried toward the doors.
Inside the hospital, Dr. Shoate told Jessica that Kim Desinor was conscious only for short periods of time, and when conscious, she insisted on no visitors other than her fiancee. “She simply wants to die at this point. She doesn't want anything else.”
“ You stay here,” Jessica told Keyes. “If she'll talk to anyone, it'll be me.”
Keyes nodded, frowned, and clasped her hands together. “I'm sure the last thing she needs is an introduction to a stranger who happens to be a psychiatrist.”
“ She's a shrink herself, along with being psychic, so she has a healthy respect for what a good therapist can do, believe me. Once I get to the bottom of this, maybe we can talk introductions, and who knows, maybe she could benefit from seeing you-professionally.”
“ Shrink, heal thyself, you mean?”
“ Something like that.”
“ It's not uncommon that a psychiatrist needs psychiatric care. We're only human, after all.” Jessica left Keyes standing in the hallway outside Kim's door at Intensive Care. Coming out was Detective Alex Sincebaugh of the Baltimore police, Kim's lover and fianc6, who spent every weekend with her when he drove in from Baltimore, where he worked homicide. They'd met in New Orleans, where Sincebaugh had combined on the Heartthrob Murders in the French Quarter. Kim and Jessica had teamed with Sincebaugh to bring an end to the killer's career there.
Sincebaugh had fallen in love with Kim, and he had moved across the country to be close to her. He stared Jessica in the eyes now and said, “I knew you people would kill her one day.”
“ Alex, I'm sorry for what's happening to her as much as you. No one could have foreseen this.”
“ She's literally dying of no apparent cause, but we both know what the cause is, don't we? What the fuck're you people doing about locating and putting an end to this case involving Judge DeCampe?”
She put out a hand to him, but he brushed past, saying, “I've got to call in. Tell them I'm taking time off. I'm going to be with her night and day.” He then rushed away, shaken to the core.
Jessica stepped into the darkened ICU, and seeing the usually vibrant, strong woman reduced to a shell of herself gave Jessica a chill. She went to Kim, whose lesions were covered in bandages, Dr. Shoate using his best elixirs on the continuing decay spots. Shoate whispered now in Jessica's ear that the problem seemed to be arrested at one point, but on further monitoring, this proved false. Nothing seemed to be working.